shire – Graeme Skinner

A mixed bag

Graeme Skinner — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 15:35:35 +0000

As my head is now fried here’s a mixed bag from yesterday (when we timed some drives from different parts of the area to see if we could live there or not and still get to places we need to be), and some from today on the coast blowing some cobwebs away….

Taken in my perpetual search for the Shire (and somewhere to dig a nice Hobbit hole and hide with a good book or two).

In’t Shire

Graeme Skinner — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 16:31:50 +0000

Mewn twll yn y ddaear trigai hobyd. Nid twll afiach, budr, gwlyb yn llawn pennau mwydod ac oglau llysnafedd……

In the quiet of the world

Graeme Skinner — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 08:49:40 +0000

Tangents are quite interesting at times, and also quite frustrating. A while ago I started to think what the view would be from Bilbo’s front door if you reversed the Shire map (by Tolkien)…

This of course led me to the illustration by Tolkien of the Hill…

Which of course meant I needed to know how those buildings would look from the other side, the easiest solution of course is to do a quick mock up in 3D…

In the end, sitting doodling was an easier solution to getting the image from my head onto paper. Of course now I’ve finished there’s a few things I’d like to change next time, and a version you could manipulate in 3D would be fun, so you can step out of the door yourself

Windows 21…

Graeme Skinner — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 11:30:52 +0000

This month’s theme over on John Howe’s website is ‘A Room with a View’…

After all the many months of confinement, semi-confinement and other lockdowns, have you ever found yourself staring out the window and imagining a different vista? (Not that there is necessarily wrong with that familiar view, mind you, but a little variety would be nice.)
So, this is your chance. Imagine where you are, imagine a window, then imagine the view.
Perhaps it’s a view on the past, or the future, or another world… You’ll see…

For some reason I decided on Shire inspired views

I started with a view from a cozy Hobbit hole looking across the shire….

I then drew the living room doors/windows with an imagined landscape beyond….

Three-Farthing Stone

Graeme Skinner — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 16:12:43 +0000

Still trying to work out the Three-Farthing stone in The Shire

The Far Downs in Winter

Graeme Skinner — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 13:31:24 +0000

Quick watercolour looking at the Far Downs (Western border of the Shire ;-)).

Askew

Graeme Skinner — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:18:58 +0000

I sat down to paint the Hobbits returning to Bag End during the Scouring of the Shire, I wasn’t too impressed with the grassy hill but hey, it’s grass, it’s difficult the sheds went fine, in fact I was quite happy to paint them* the foreground was a mixed bag but went okay in the end. It’s when I turned to the Hobbits that things went askew, they wouldn’t stand still, or stood in awkward positions, one gained height, and another had hair issues…. in the end the painting that I saw in my head didn’t appear on paper and I need to think about how to proceed (probably generally with my painting ;-)).

Two of the Hobbits were removed in the end in Photoshop as I didn’t like them.

*Perhaps I should take up shed painting.

Dawn over the Shire

Graeme Skinner — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 12:34:23 +0000

I started a reference sketch in photoshop for a painting, it was supposed to be a watercolour yet I ended up finishing it in Photoshop – not sure it’s what I wanted to achieve but it’s done, for now

Sign of the times

Graeme Skinner — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 15:32:56 +0000

It’s practice time, so I’ve been painting colours, skies, grass, clouds, washes…. and I got the point where I had to do something a bit more real. So I rattled out a quick practice painting

Towards the hills

Graeme Skinner — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 15:21:10 +0000

These two photographs are the result of a quick wander when I noticed the light was looking quite interesting (after a spell of grey skies ;-)). I’ve kept the colour versions handy for some Shire/Tolkien themed paintings